Talk:Devil facial tumour disease

Comments

Australian spelling of tumor? tumour

Both spellings are pleniful on the net; the Australian variant should clearly be used in this context.

Tony 02:57, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, and that's how the Nature abstract spells it; I've left the link to canine transmissible venereal tumor with the non-U spelling, though, since that reflects the spelling in that article. --Calair 07:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

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I heard this disease was spread because the animals' mating habits involve biting each other on the face... is this true or am I thinking of another animal/disease? Or maybe I'm entirely wrong altogether, heh... Robin Chen 22:05, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't "aggressive mating" cover that, though? - 220.237.30.150 09:20, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Further reading

"Further reading" sections should be avoiding. They push boundaries of both POV and advertising in Wikipedia. Can these books be moved as uncited references, or should they be removed entirely.--ZayZayEM 02:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

• So remove them. Ona differnt note, see alsos should only really include links that aren't already in the article.--Peta 02:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • If they are really central to teh article, they should. Not everyone is going to read the article in detail.--ZayZayEM 08:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
    • A person is hardly doing to miss them in an article this short. --Peta 08:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, Peta, but your original point was that it was against the rules, not that it wasn't necessary for short articles. I think that there is an excellent case for listing valuable links again at the end. Btw, you might like to use your spell-checker and brush up on your grammar. It's irritating to see a proof-reader and rule-invoker produce English that looks like chutney in a dog's bowl. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Myles325a (talk • contribs).
    • Please observe WP:Civility when editing; comments like the above don't really foster a productive atmosphere. --Calair 14:31, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• • • • this is not a stub. Someone doing a brief skim might. It helps highlight articles that are very well related. I'll cede on tas devil main page, but not the veneral sarcoma.--ZayZayEM 11:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the claim that HeLa has "nothing to do with DTFD". Both are cells that started out as cancers but have remained viable long after the death of their original host; I would've thought that was a fairly notable similarity. --Calair 04:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

• It's a bit of a stretch, an immortal human cancer cell line that is used in research and is not a disease causing agent and an animal cancer that is transmittable, but not necessarily immortal. --Peta 04:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure this cancer can be transmitted?

It is entirely possible that the parasite is being transmitted between the animals. There must be a cited article that addresses this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ninjagecko (talk • contribs) 13:43, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

From the introduction: "Transmissible cancer is extremely rare. There is only one other known type - canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT)"

Feline leukemia is also transmissible. It is caused by the feline leukemia virus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.79.236.37 (talk) 18:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The feline leukemia virus article makes it clear in the intro that this disease is NOT a cancer and that the "leukemia" tag is a misnomer. Myles325a (talk) 05:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

And the article itself cites Syrian hamster tumor as yet another example of a non-viral transmissible cancer. Seems like that first sentence should really be corrected.--BenA (talk) 14:47, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I've removed that detail from the article, as internet sources say that Syrian hamster tumours are the result of inbreeding, not transmission. If there are other transmissable cancers apart from from the Tassy devil's and the dog ones, then I would like to hear about it. Myles325a (talk) 06:03, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Would you include human cervical cancer? Steve Graham (talk) 17:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't it still be classed as transmitted, even if to the unborn foetus? The word transmission isn't limited by method, only by the fact that it has moved from one place to another. I'm probably splitting hairs though, I usually do :-) 78.86.230.62 (talk) 21:25, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The distinction is that the tumour is transmitted by the tumour cells themselves, not by an external agent such as a virus - so no to HPV transmitted cervical cancer and no to feline leukemia virus.96.54.53.165 (talk) 01:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Why now?

If the reason for this cancer is that the Devils went through a population bottleneck of 500 individuals 10,000 years ago, how is it that the spontaneous outbreak of a cancer happens to be driving them extinct now? It seems to me that either the cancer won't drive them extinct or else there is more to the story... Wnt (talk) 15:04, 3 January 2010 (UTC)